A U.S. District Court judge ruled in favor of ICANN in a fight over Verisign's …

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Verisign, with the approval of ICANN, has planned to introduce a Wait Listing Service, a subscription-based service which will allow customers to subscribe to any registered domain name, even if it is currently owned by someone else. If the subscription expires during the term of the subscription, it will automatically be reregistered to the subscriber. Needless to say, other domain name registrars are upset by this, as it could lead to lost business as their customers sign up on Verisign's waiting list. Last last month, registrars Go Daddy, Dotster, and eNom filed suit in U.S. District Court, and requested a temporary injunction against ICANN's allowing Verisign to implement the service. Now the judge has ruled, denying the plaintiffs' request for an injunction. A PDF copy of the decision can be found here. Currently, other registrars provide similar services as the one Verisign hopes to offer, however, they can only compete to register an expiring domain once its registry entry has been deleted. The Wait Listing Service would supercede those services, although all registrars would be able to offer Verisign's service to their own customers. Particularly interesting in the ruling is the wide leeway the judge gives ICANN to operate under its charter granted by the U.S. Department of Commerce, stating:

In this case, the proposed preliminary injunction would would interfere with the comprehensive scheme devised by the Department of Commerce to administer the Internet. Such interference should not be undertaken lightly.

In other words, judges should cut ICANN some serious slack when questions of public interest arise in the course of its action. ICANN in the past has demonstrated that is able to act in the public interest, coming down hard on Verisign when it implemented its SiteFinder service. However, if the judiciary begins to automatically defer to ICANN when problems arise and suits are filed, is that really in the public interest?